


Digging Up Roses

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Birthday Presents, Books, Families of Choice, Living Together, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life, Twitch Streamer Edelgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23685988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: For his thirty-first birthday, Hubert has a lie-in, uses Ferdinand as pillow, and playsAnimal Crossing: New Horizons.(For Hubert's Birthday and the Ferdinand and Hubert Birthday Bash 2020)
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 19
Kudos: 152
Collections: Ferdibert Birthday Bash 2020





	Digging Up Roses

It is raining in Hubert and Ferdinand’s town. 

The mild, jazzy notes of the 10AM soundtrack give the impression of fat droplets hitting a tin roof. Hubert’s flowers, which line the cobblestone pathways he put down over the course of the week, sparkle lightly, happily watered by the natural weather. In the far upper right hand of the screen, the cat neighbour, Raymond, is meandering by dressed in an adorable raincoat. 

Hubert sighs through his nose. He puts his villager’s watering can away and turns towards his blinking mailbox. 

Above his head, propped up against his and Hubert’s pillow, Ferdinand breathes out. Sympathetic and amused.

“You could go island hopping and water the flowers there,” he murmurs.

Hubert frowns. He is sincerely disappointed, but he says anything Ferdinand will rightly tease him for sulking. He will also tell everyone in the _Animal Crossing: New Horizons_ subchannel of the Black Eagles group chat. Hubert does not wish to have his phone pinging him incessantly for the rest of the morning with offers to visit other towns to water flowers. 

10AM is too early to be properly social. 

As it is, he and Ferdinand are spread out together in bed. It is a lazy Thursday morning, and it is Hubert’s birthday, so they have taken the day off. They have a group video chat scheduled for the later afternoon, which will allow even Byleth, who recently moved away to a full-time theology position, to join in to toast Hubert’s thirty-first. Ferdinand has the filling for Hubert’s favourite dish, chicken, pickled herring, and leek pie, in the refrigerator. The pickled herring is not something Ferdinand enjoys, but it is Hubert’s birthday, and he is happy to make what Hubert likes. Hubert knows the bottle of Madeira Hubert ordered and had delivered two days ago will make up for this. Both he and Ferdinand very much enjoy a tipple and Hubert is confident he may convince Ferdinand to make him a Madeira cake. 

The weather outside is even pleasant, sunlight visible behind the spring cloud cover. Ferdinand has already been out for his morning run and showered. Hubert woke up and used the bathroom while Ferdinand hummed to himself under the shower spray. He splashed some water on his face from the sink faucet and went to the kitchen where he inhaled Ferdinand’s leftover toast while he waited for his coffee to drip. He put the dirty dishes in the sink before taking his coffee cup and going back to bed. Ferdinand rejoined him after going down to check their mail and packages, climbing back into bed after shedding his trousers with a new book. 

In his in-game mailbox, Hubert’s Nook catalog delivery and a letter from the villager’s nameless, ever cheerful “Mom” is in the box. He opens the letter and, without reading it, sends the present directly to his pockets. Ferdinand shifts, his hip and upper left thigh that Hubert is using a pillow tensing and relaxing.

“Hubie,” Ferdinand says, yawning in the middle and turning Hubert’s nickname into something that sounds more like _hoo-bae_ , “the letter looked sweet.” 

“She’s not my mom,” Hubert says, opening his villager’s pockets. “I don’t want another tissue box.” 

“What _would_ your mother send you for your birthday?” Ferdinand asks as Hubert opens the present and immediately moves the 1,000 Bells to his wallet. “Well, that’s better.” 

Hubert frowns. He opens his catalogue purchase, K.K. Hypno, and turns back into his villager’s house to add it to the throwback skull radio in his front room. He sets it to play. The faintly eerie and psychedelic tones fill the room. It matches with the decor, which is currently centred around the three skeletons Hubert was gifted independently by Edelgard, Bernadetta, and Petra at midnight for his birthday. 

“Hm,” Hubert says, moving around his radio and table to try and get a good angle to take a picture. “Wine, maybe?” 

“She did give us a nice bottle for Christmas,” Ferdinand says, turning a page in his book. 

“Was it nice?” Hubert asks as he switches through filters. 

“Yes,” Ferdinand murmurs, clearly paying a bit more attention to his book again. “I wrote her a ‘thank you’.” 

“No wonder she likes you better,” Hubert intones as he snaps a couple of pictures. 

Ferdinand snorts. He turns the page in his book as Hubert opens his villager’s pockets to shove extra resources into storage. The game chirps cheerfully, the sounds slightly disconcerting with K.K. Hypno playing softly in the background. 

“Ferdie,” Hubert says as he finishes and moves his villager out the door again into the rain, “what book are you reading?” 

“Oh,” Ferdinand says, the paper rustling briefly. “ _Dragons Taking the Forms of Humans_ by Seteth A. Cichol. Petra recommended it.” 

“Oh?” Hubert asks as he directs his villager towards Resident Services because the title sounds quite interesting. “Is it fantasy?”

“I guess it is high fantasy,” Ferdinand says, a little less focused as he begins reading again, “but it reads like an episodic narrative rather than telling a singular epic tale. There are recurring characters between the episodes, but they don’t go on a journey together. At least not yet. This is the first book; there’s another and probably a third coming. You know how everyone wants everything to be a trilogy nowadays.” 

Hubert snorts. He buys another Nook Miles ticket from the terminal, half-watching Isabelle spraying and smelling her office plant tulips on loop. 

“I’ll read it after you,” he says as Ferdinand turns another page. “Also, when you play today, can you change the island tune?”

This earns a snort from Ferdinand as well. “Have you finally grown tired of ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’?” he teases.

Hubert rolls his eyes as he directs his villager to exit Resident Services. “I will never tire of ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’,” he says as he heads towards the airport, ignoring two of his villagers along the way. “Change it to fit K.K. Hypno. I want to design a new flag.” 

“Seriously?” Ferdinand murmurs, clearly amused. “Fine. Pay off the new incline.” 

“I am still amazed,” Hubert says as he speeds through the dialogue to use a Nook Miles Ticket with Orville, “that Dorothea has already terraformed her island into Valhalla.” 

Ferdinand breathes out on a real laugh. He turns a page in his book. The jingle for Dodo Airlines’ takeoff chimes from their television. 

“Edelgard got to that point, what, three days after this game came out?” he says, shifting again to sit up a bit straighter on his pillow.

“She kind of had to,” Hubert says, squinting slightly as he notices peaches on the blurry tree close to the random island’s dock. “Her stream – oh!”

“Mhm?” Ferdinand hums before he also notices the flowers that Hubert is currently rushing to dig up. “Oh! Finally! Roses!” 

Hubert digs up one of the white roses before it occurs to him to check his pockets. He directs his villager to kick dirt into the hole to fill it in and then opens his pockets to begin dumping unnecessary items. It will be annoying to pick up more softwood again, but taking back to their island as many roses as possible is the most important. 

“Hubie, lift your head,” Ferdinand says.

Huberts sits up. Ferdinand scoots off the bed to retrieve his laptop from where he had dumped it the night before on their dresser. He returns to bed, sitting down and crossing his legs as he opens up the screen. Hubert digs up a red rose and breaks his shovel.

“Damn,” he grunts before turning his villager around to run back to the crafting stump. 

“Take some of the peaches, too,” Ferdinand says as he pulls up their flower breeding spreadsheet. “I want to craft the cute rug I got a recipe for a couple days ago.” 

Hubert grunts. For a while, they are quiet. Hubert digs up the island, ignoring all of the fish, bugs, and seashells. Ferdinand finishes updating their spreadsheet before shuffling around on the bed to spread out with his book. 

“You should talk to the villagers today,” Ferdinand says as Hubert button mashes through Wilbur’s dialogue. 

“Why,” Hubert asks, turning his head to Ferdinand as the takeoff jingle plays.

Ferdinand smiles at him. Hubert realises his hair, which he’s put up into a messy bun with one of the large hair clips Hilda gave him a while back, is still wet. It will be even more wild than usual for it when he lets it down. Just as Hubert likes it. He also notices Ferdinand’s laptop is still open, precarious near the edge of the bed.

“It’s your birthday,” Ferdinand says, clearly following Hubert’s first train of thought. “They’ll have gifts for you.”

“Move your laptop before it falls,” Hubert says, turning back to the screen.

“Okay, okay,” Ferdinand mock-whines.

Hubert, running out of Dodo Airlines with 32 new roses to plot out, smiles.

_Welcome back, ‘Crossing friends! This is El’s Twitch stream, and it’s time for Thursday Town Reviews!_

_Our first up is my dear friends’ town, Aegir. Yes, like the small European country. One of my friends who plays in this town is originally from there. If you see an orange busybody villager run by in the footage, that’s our Ferdie._

[As if on cue, Ferdinand’s villager runs by with an axe through the lower part of the screen.]

_...Anyways. I wanted to show you this town because it’s my other friends’ birthday and they’ve been making great use of the game’s mechanics without terraforming. Both of them are very into flower breeding—they made the flower breeding template I shared in the stream last Monday. Hubert (and, yes, that is his real name) should be planting roses at the moment, and we may pass him –_

[Ferdinand’s villager runs by Edelgard’s villager, chased by wasps. The wasps attack Edelgard. Ferdinand’s villager pivots to watch.

[The chat goes crazy. This will make a great reaction gif. Hubert, who is watching the chat on Ferdinand’s laptop, sets down his controller. He will make the gif.]

_FERDINAND!_

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to connect with me on [Twitter @Metallic_Sweet](https://twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!


End file.
